


Mostly Magic

by A_Diamond



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ella Enchanted Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF Merlin, Bottom Merlin, Canon Era, Enchanted Merlin, M/M, Magically Dubious Consent, Minor Character Death, Rimming, Top Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:22:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9649592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: Whatever you were searching for when you came across this book, you’re probably not going to find it here. Someone thinks it’ll be historically significant for me to record my side of things. This is a story about lies and secrets, magic and murder, vengeance and betrayal. Prepare to learn more about Camelot and its King than you ever wanted to know. There’s really no coming back from this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Reel Merlin](http://reel-merlin.livejournal.com) Take 8, for the movie Ella Enchanted.

A word of caution to the hypothetical reader:

Whatever you were searching for when you came across this book, you’re probably not going to find it here. Someone thinks it’ll be historically significant for me to record my side of things. I think that’s ridiculous, but I’m not exactly in a position to argue right now. So if they want my honest recollection of things, then by the Gods, they’re going to get it. Whether they ever let it see the light of day is another matter, but I suppose if this bit of rambling has found an audience then it means they must have.

So if you’re quite certain you have nothing better to do than waste an evening with me—and this really is a tale for the evening, I promise. If you’ve started it while there’s still daylight, put the book down and don’t return until the stars have risen. You’ll thank me. This is a story about lies and secrets, magic and murder, vengeance and betrayal. It’s much more suited to moonlight.

Still with me? Then let’s get to it. Prepare to learn more about Camelot and its King than you ever wanted to know. There’s really no coming back from this. You’ve been warned.

Though, before that, I guess we should start with a brief history of all things Merlin, just to give you some context for the rest of the story.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

I was born brimming with magic—quite literally glowing with it, in fact—into a kingdom which despised sorcery. Camelot had lost the beloved Queen Ygraine to magic only a few years before, and King Uther’s grieved vengeance came on swift and unstoppable. The Great Purge was meant to do away with people like me, but there I was regardless.

It would turn out later that there weren’t actually people like me. The people killed in the Purge _used_ magic; I _was_ magic. But that, like I said, comes later.

For now, all you need to know is that I left the womb glowing like a lantern and my mother sobbed a cry that had nothing to do with childbirth. She begged Midwife Simmons not to turn us in. Or she might’ve done worse than beg—Mum had gossip on just about everyone in Ealdor, and she always got untrusting looks from the Simmonses when our paths crossed—but she never admitted to it if she had done.

I think I knew I had to hide my magic before I even knew how to talk, and to this day I don’t know quite how she managed that. Or how I managed it, for that matter, because magic came as naturally to me as breathing. Looking back on it, I guess I didn’t manage it that well. It’s kind of a miracle I never got caught, because I definitely wasn’t as careful as she wanted me to be when it came to doing magic.

But I didn’t get found out, not even when Mum married Kanen and we moved into his house. He had two sons of his own, Valiant and Cornelius, who were neither of them much better men than their father. Mum didn’t care for Kanen, because he was a brute and a bully, but rising taxes in the face of Uther’s war on all things magical had forced us out of our own hut, humble though it was. Kanen had the means to support us and an eye for Mum, who’d never married after the disgrace of my bastard birth.

Don’t worry for her, though. She had enough of his affection to turn him aside when he got in a mood, and he never laid a hand on her in anger or lust. I would’ve scattered pieces of him to the four winds if he’d dared, not that he knew that. Mum knew, and warned me off a few times when it looked like I was feeling step-patricidal.

Cornelius was my age, Valiant a few years older, and the three of us shared the attic as a bedroom. They were pricks, and I slept under my bed more often than on it because they liked to leave unpleasant surprises between the sheets, but it was manageable. Kanen didn’t give me too much trouble, out of hope for earning my mother’s favor, so neither did they.

Then Mum got sick. Really sick, the kind there’s no coming back from. And don’t ask me what the point of being the most powerful warlock to ever walk the earth is if I couldn’t use it to save my own mum. I might have to turn you into a donkey and then cry for a while. It’s a bit of a sore subject, even now.

It only took a few days, and I was by her side for all of them. She worried for my future, with Kanen and with being magical in Camelot. At the end, when she knew it was time, she drew me down to her. Breath came hard and labored to her dying lungs, but she forced the words out.

“Be careful. Promise me, Merlin. You must do as you’re told and never, never tell anyone of your magic.”

I did promise, of course. And that’s where all my troubles began, dear reader, because there’s magic in a promise to a dying mother. It wove together with my own magic and from that moment on, I was magically bound, compelled by enchantment to do as I was told and never, ever tell anyone about my magic.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

I didn’t find out about the compulsion immediately, of course. I felt something warm and slightly painful in my chest, but that seemed appropriate for the situation. I’d never experienced grief so deep and wrenching before Mum’s death; it had always been just the two of us, who would I have mourned?

No, I got that particular surprise after the funeral. It was a small affair, because Kanen had been taken with Mum but not fond enough to waste money on her once she was gone. Still, most of Ealdor turned out to pay their respects. Mum may not have been the most beloved, a disreputable woman who’d birthed a child from a stranger passing through and who may possibly have known and held the worst of people’s natures over their heads, but we were a small village and Kanen had enough clout that folks turned out to make a show of his loss.

As soon as we got back to Kanen’s house, he made it clear that the apathy with which he’d suffered my presence, out of deference to Mum, was over. “Stop weeping like a wronged maiden, what’s done is done. You’ll be earning your keep around here from now on, or you’ll be out in the streets with the rest of the refuse. Start by cleaning the house, it’s been a mess for far too long. Sweep, scrub, dust—I want the entire house spotless. Or you won’t like the consequences,” he added darkly.

When he gave the first command, I felt that same warming pain in my chest and my tears just stopped. I was still grieving, of course, and I hadn’t been sobbing like a child, but I’d just buried my mother and I thought I was entitled to cry over the only person who’d ever cared for me. It was out of my control, though, and a deeply uncomfortable feeling at that: I had the emotions still, and the urge to cry, but the tears seemed to well just under the surface and pool there without falling. My eyes stayed dry.

Then he continued, and the feeling beneath my ribs intensified with each order until it burned steadily, a fire moving my body of its own accord. I had no intention of taking the broom from beside the back door, but my legs took me there without my say-so, and my hand closed around the rough branch of its handle in the same manner.

Kanen, surprised enough at my obedience that he didn’t notice my own surprise at it, coughed after a moment and nodded. “Good. Boys,”—which meant only Valiant and Cornelius, always had—“we’ve been invited to supper with Old Man Simmons and his wife. Merlin, make yourself some small meal from whatever’s about to spoil, but only after you’ve ensured every inch of my home is clean enough to eat from.”

They left. I kept at the cursed cleaning, unable to force myself to drop the broom or cease the movement of my arms as I gathered up the copious dust into a pile. Believe me, I tried every damn thing I could think of to get it to stop. The most drastic measure I took, after an attempt to magic the house clean and cut my torture short fizzled to nothing but angry sparks, was breaking the broom.

It wasn’t easy to do, since I had to do it mid-sweep and my arms kept up the motion without my input. I managed, and then immediately regretted it. Uncontrollable sweeping with half a broom is a lot more work than uncontrollable sweeping with a full broom, as it turns out, though at least I had one hand free—once I discarded the broken-off part of the handle. I gave up with that attempt and resigned myself to compulsively following Kanen’s commands.

After sweeping every corner of every room—including the extremely questionable piles of grime built up under Kanen and Valiant’s beds—my body trudged itself out to the well to fill a bucket, then back to the house for soap and a rag. Then it dropped me to my hands and knees and started scrubbing the floor.

At least with the chores being done autonomously, I had time to puzzle out what was happening to me. It took, I’ll admit, longer than it should have for me to connect my situation to the promise I’d made my mum on her deathbed, but I got there as I worked my way up the stairs. The lingering, painful heat in my chest was what finally drew my mind back to that moment.

 _Do as you’re told,_  she’d said, and there I was being forced to do as I was told. She couldn’t have known what that promise would cause, what it would cost me in the end. It wasn’t fair to blame her, but there came to be days—the hardest days, when everything terrible in my life could be traced back to the enchantment she’d unintentionally burdened me with—when I hated her for it. Never for long; I always spent more time hating myself for hating her.

That first night was a rough one, more from the shock than anything. Not to say the work itself wasn’t hard. It was. I was finishing the floor in the room I shared with my step-brothers when they and their father returned from dinner. I myself hadn’t eaten, though my stomach was gnawing at itself with hunger; I couldn’t until I’d cleaned the house.

“Aren’t you done yet?” Cornelius complained. “I want to sleep. Get out, you can finish up here in the morning.”

Instantly I stood, my feet carrying me out of the room of their own volition until Cornelius called me back with, “Hey, take the stinking bucket with you!” I circled back to scoop up the bucket, by then refilled four times due to the amount of grime I’d scrubbed off the floors, then the enchantment whisked me downstairs to start dusting. No rafter went uncleaned, which required quite a lot of standing on chairs and stretching dangerously.

It also knocked most of the dust down to the floor, which meant that I had to sweep all over again to obey Kanen’s command to clean absolutely everything. By the time I was finally done, free of the compulsory tidying, my whole body ached with the long hours of work and my stomach cramped with nauseous hunger. I barely had the energy to scrape together some scraps of vegetable and gristle, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter—I’d been ordered to, after all.

I couldn’t even go back to my room; apparently Cornelius’s admonishment to get out still held. I curled in front of the dying fire, failed again to use my magic to rekindle it, and cried myself quietly to sleep.

Mum was gone, my magic was gone—actually bound, not gone altogether, though I didn't know it at the time; more on that later—and everything was hopeless.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

Despite Cornelius being the smarter of my two step-brothers, Valiant was the one who figured it out. It took nearly three months of suspicious glances every time I jolted to attention at a command, but eventually he cornered me when the others were out.

“There’s something odd going on with you,” he said, his hard gaze a mix of thoughtful and predatory.

I tried to deny it, but he’d already come to the right conclusion. He gave me a series of orders—the details don’t matter—and grinned as I was forced to obey.

“I’m going to have so much fun with you,” he promised darkly, and that’s when I knew I needed to get out. I waited out the night and only got one command that ended up ruining my life, to whatever extent it hadn’t been ruined already: “Don’t tell anyone else about whatever spell this is you’re under.”

Fortunately, he didn’t think to tell me not to run. So once he’d gone to sleep, I fled.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

Ealdor was a long walk from the capital city at the heart of Camelot, but that was where I found myself heading for lack of any better idea. It was as good a place as any to start a new life. A country boy would blend easily into the crowds, hopefully enough that my peculiarity—my compulsion, my curse—would go unnoticed. If not, I’d just have to hope I could slip away again before someone used it to bind me to them.

I didn’t think Kanen would come after me. Being rid of me might mean he’d have to pay a girl or a widow to clean and cook for him, but it wouldn’t be more than he’d grudgingly spent to keep me fed and clothed. That coin had been meager enough already, and thus far paid entirely from his profit at selling my former bed—I’d been sleeping downstairs ever since that first night after the funeral, because my step-brothers had decided they quite liked having the room to themselves again.

Valiant was another matter, though. He didn’t have business tying him to town as Kanen did, and spent days at a time away on drinking or whoring sprees. Or drunken whoring sprees. Taking the time to hunt me down would go unremarked as another of his regular trips, but I didn’t know whether he’d think my coercibility was worth the effort.

Just in case, I kept off the main road as much as possible. Most of the way bordered on forests or fields, and I’d absconded with enough bread and cheese to last me the trip. The fair weather held, to my astonished delight, so I could spend my nights in groves or barns and not have to risk lodging at an inn. I didn’t have the money for a room, but most of them were happy enough to trade a corner of the hallway for some washed dishes and swept floors.

Either Valiant didn’t bother or I successfully avoided him, because I reached the gates of the city without his shadow falling over me. Relief eased the stiffness of my spine and it felt like I could breathe freely for the first time in ages.

I’d made it.

I needed to find a job and a place to stay, but as long as I kept mostly to myself I expected I could live peacefully.

I’m not sure how I managed to still be so idiotically naive, but don’t worry—I was proven wrong soon enough.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

Magic had been outlawed in the Kingdom of Camelot since before my birth. Nevertheless, I’d harbored a secret hope that there were others like me, people with magic who’d avoided the Purge and all the smaller-scale executions after. If ever I was to find someone who could help me with the double affliction of my obedience enchantment and my malfunctioning magic, it would either be hidden in the bustling center of the kingdom or flung far to its edges.

I fancied my chances in the populated streets of Camelot City better—or I had, until I walked amidst them and heard the whispered news that hadn’t reached Ealdor before my departure:

King Uther was dead, murdered by a witch scarcely a month before. She’d caught him and all his finest guards by surprise at a banquet, and had managed to strike the King down with her magic before anyone could intervene. Three knights had died in the effort of killing one little old lady.

I’m sure you understand by now, because you’re hopefully not a complete fool, that scenario is exactly the trouble with the whole idea of banning magic and murdering of magic users. If Uther hadn’t been a fearful, vengeful tyrant—yes, I’m speaking ill of a martyred monarch. This is my book and I’ve promised to be honest—then not only might there have been a well-meaning sorcerer or warlock to stop her, but she wouldn’t have wanted him dead in the first place.

A great many things would have been different if not for Uther’s hatred.

But I’m getting away from our narrative. The King was dead. His only son, Prince Arthur, now orphaned, was to be crowned when he came of age and turned twenty-one in the spring. In the meantime his uncle served as Regent. Agravaine was brother to the late Queen, not himself of the royal line, but he was nobility and the only family Arthur had left, so the King’s Council had approved his appointment.

Had I been actually trying to find the worst time to arrive in Camelot City as a secret—albeit powerless—warlock, I couldn’t have chosen any better. The Regent had teams of Witchfinders roving the city, hunting down any traces of magic. Magic users, those they suspected of magical sympathies, even anyone who’d fallen victim to an enchantment. They were brutal and effective; my first day, a magician and the family who had housed him were burned together on a single pyre. The magician was bound by cold iron chains. The young son cried until he screamed, and screamed until he fell silent.

I wanted nothing more than to put a stop to the massacre, but I’d come upon the scene too late to save them. With my magic, I wouldn’t have had a chance to stop the flames before they were consumed; without it, I could only turn away.

“See!” the Regent’s voice boomed out from the castle balcony, and I couldn’t even do that anymore. “See the fate of those who dare turn to evil in Camelot. Sorcery is an enemy to all good men, and any who permit it would rejoice to see you and yours killed. I know, because they’ve done it to me and to my dear nephew, now mourning two parents murdered. So gather here and watch as we burn the evil out of the very heart of Camelot.”

Frozen in place by the commands of his rhetoric, I couldn’t look away until the coals had burned to ash.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

To this day, I don’t know whether it was the nature of my power or how it was bound away that kept me from the sights of the Witchfinders. Though a hawkish man in a black robe stopped every other person walking by him in the market to peer into their eyes and whisper questions that left them shaking and pale, his gaze slid right over me when I caught myself mid-step at the sight of him.

Someone ran into me from behind, having also failed to notice my suspiciously abrupt halt, and nearly knocked me to the ground. When I recovered my balance and glanced back, I had my first look at the man I would later learn was Prince Arthur. I didn’t know it at the time, of course. Small country town like Ealdor, we didn’t get a lot of royal portraiture coming through.

My first impression of him was not very favorable.

“Watch where you’re going!” he barked at me, face cut in a scowl.

My eyes dropped to the ground against my will. “You ran into me, my friend,” I pointed out.

A few guffaws sounded from the man’s general area, though I couldn’t look up to see if they were passersby or with him. It didn’t sound like his voice, though. His was the one that scoffed, “What?”

“I said—”

“Look at me when you talk,” he said, and for a period of time after he kept getting confused when I’d stare at him every time I spoke. But for the purposes of that conversation, it was only the two of us anyway, and the command was enough to break my concentration on my feet.

“I said,” I repeated, “you bumped into me.”

His smile crooked disbelievingly. It matched the crook of his nose, and to tell you the truth, that special smirk of his made my pants a little tighter even back then, when I thought he was just another arrogant, bullying ass passing through the market. Speaking of his ass—well, later.

“Do you know who I am?”

“I know you’re an ass, does that help?”

The couple of men behind him—and I could see then that there were a couple of them, and they were clearly with him—parted their lips dumbly and exchanged glances.

Arthur seemed to be fighting back a laugh as he said, “I’m Arthur. Prince of Camelot.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well. I’m Merlin.”

“And?”

He was angling for some sort of apologetic grovelling. He wasn’t going to get it from me unless he managed to trigger my enchantment to require it.

“And I’m not an ass.”

Letting out the laugh at last, Arthur looked me over again. Allow me to provide some insight I didn’t have at the time but would learn later, as a manner of foreshadowing and in order to skip over some of his exceptionally awkward flirting attempts to follow: Prince Arthur of Camelot was definitely picturing me naked.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

I ran into Arthur enough over the next few days that I’m quite certain he had someone following me around to report on my location, if he wasn’t doing it himself. Normally I’d be happy to delight you with the details of his embarrassing efforts to woo me, but at the time I was myself young and somewhat easily flustered. I’m not sure I would come off much better—better, yes, but not much—and we can’t have our hero looking the fool.

Yes, of course I’m the hero of this story. It’s my story.

Suffice it to say that in addition to the aforementioned stalking, there was banter and daring looks and displays of physicality that Arthur tried valiantly to disguise as his usual brand of bullying, but were clearly just an excuse to get his hands all over me.

Occasionally something he said would force me into obedience, but fortunately it was never anything too large or unconscionable. When it happened, he’d just laugh and throw an arm around my shoulders, declaring, “You’re a strange one, Merlin,” as though I were making a joke of it. I laughed along with him and hoped to all the stars that he’d never find out the truth.

Eventually I took pity on him, and followed him into his room after torturing both of us by sitting astride a practice field fence and watching him spar with his knights. He blocked me in against the door as soon as it had shut, but his first kiss was tentative, questioning. Polite, but not what we both needed.

He’d been sparring shirtless, you understand.

I dragged him to me with my hands clasped around the back of his neck, forcing his mouth open with my own to stave off any ideas he may have had about taking things slow. His skin was flushed with the heat of his exertions, but I could feel the hard line of his cock hotter still despite the layers between us when he pressed closer into me. We both groaned, rutting against each other through the cloth, then he pulled away.

“Tell me this is all right,” Arthur whispered as his hand slid down into my breeches.

And it was, Gods, I wanted it—wanted him—so badly. But I still felt the tight burn of compulsion at his unintended command, and it tore at my heart that the words ripped out of my throat weren’t my own.

You don’t need all the salacious details of what the King-to-be and I did together that first time, but if you’ve read this far, you probably already know I’m going to tell you anyway.

Arthur’s palm closing around me was like nothing I’d ever felt. I’d had dalliances enough with my own flesh, but his skin was rougher than mine, his calluses built up from swords instead of brooms and not worn down by wash water. Strong fingers gripped me and stroked fast and firm, an onslaught no longer tentative.

I don’t remember the exact order in which clothes fell away, or the paths by which hands explored new territory. What matters is that I ended up on elbows and knees on the Prince’s bed, his hands spreading me open to reveal an intimate sort of place I never expected to be showing off to royalty. But oh, Arthur liked the view.

“You’re gorgeous like this,” he told the swell of one buttock. “Do you know what I’d like to do with you?”

“I’ve got—I’ve got some ideas.” My voice broke as he brushed his thumb over my hole.

He chuckled and the sound curled through me, dark and promising. “I really don’t think you do, Merlin.”

Then his tongue followed the path of his finger, slicking a warm trail up my cleft. On the first sweep it passed over the tight clench of my hole, which clenched further in surprise at the act. The second lick dragged more slowly, and on the third Arthur circled his tongue round and round before kissing me there as he’d done my mouth.

His lips pushed against me, tender, gentle as I relaxed into it. Though I was initially overcome by the strange newness of the feeling, I was eager for more by the time he started to nibble and suck at my rim. Every drag of his lips ignited pleasure in skin I hadn’t known to be so sensitive. He worked at me until I lost track of time and more than likely forgot my own name, until his tongue could push into me with ease and wring unapologetically wanton whimpers from me.

I was dizzy with desire. My hips thrust into the empty air below me with each breath, finding no relief for my prick but driving Arthur deeper inside me when they hitched back. Reaching down to touch myself was out of the question; I was sure to topple over if I tried to support myself on only on arm, my balance already unsteady.

Finally Arthur pulled away only to drape himself over me. His cock was hot against my thigh and his breath was hot against my ear as he asked, “Can I have you?”

I kissed him for making it a question, even if he didn’t know that was why. He took it as permission, instead, which was fine—because it was that, too.

I was already slick and loose from his mouth, but he still fetched a small jar of salve from the windowsill. Since I’m being entirely honest and oversharing already, I’ll admit that I whined as his warm touch retreated. “Arthur,” I complained, then said it again just taste his name on my lips: “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur—”

He tackled me back to the bed, mouth devouring mine as two greased fingers slid home into me. The ointment was cool, but I was so hot. My arse swallowed his fingers whole, sending sparks of pleasure branching through me at the touch and greedy for more. He gave it to me, working a third finger inside my body with thrusts and twists to match the movement of his tongue in my mouth.

Between the two efforts, I was blissfully breathless when he pulled away to slick up his prick, to ask again, “Are you sure? Say that—”

“I’m sure.” Finding the air to speak the words was a struggle, but well worth it to be allowed to say them on my own terms. Arthur might not have known the significance of it, but for me, being able to tell him what I wanted openly and freely was everything.

There was so much I wanted to tell him, but the layers of prohibitions enforced with magic meant I couldn’t loose the flood of information I wanted to share. I couldn’t tell him about the magic or the enchantment. I hated how it felt like lying to him, keeping secrets, even though I had no choice in the matter.

Then there was no more time for morose thoughts, because Arthur was pushing into me and everything was right with the world. He was alive inside me, inflamed with passion, and I was alive with him. His movements started slow and gentle, rocking just enough for me to feel it, and the look of tenderness on his face as he gazed down on me broke my heart and healed it at once.

When I could take it no longer, I surged up to kiss him fiercely. The move jostled him inside me and we both cried out with the pleasure of it; his moan washed over me like a warm breeze.

“Take me,” I urged in between worrying his lower lip with my teeth and delving to meet his tongue with my own. “Oh, Arthur, fuck me!”

Pushing me to my back on the bed, thighs spread and knees nearly to my chest, he did. His hands pressed into my skin where they held me down as he held himself up; mine twisted in the sheets by my head, and I was unable to loosen my grip even to stroke myself off.

Not that I needed to. Between the position and his fervour, my prick was already dark and leaking. It slapped hard against my belly with every thrust as Arthur’s stroked over the wonderful spot inside me that sent shivers of pleasure up my spine.

Arthur folded himself onto me more heavily, which stretched my legs to their limits without going far enough to hurt, and redoubled the force of his already bone-shaking thrusts. I was close, so close, when he groaned out, “Come for me.”

I would’ve complied even without the enchantment, just from the way desire made his voice harsh and desperate, but feeling the compulsion burn through me at the same time as my climax overwhelmed anything I’d ever experienced before. The unexpected mix of lust, humiliation, and satisfaction had me shooting off harder than I’d ever done, shaking through what felt like endless waves of orgasm as the arch of my back drove Arthur impossibly deeper.

I might’ve blacked out at that point, the details are a bit fuzzy, but at the very least I drifted in a satiated haze for a few minutes. I came to with Arthur still pounding into me, his eyes closed and his lower lip between his teeth to stem the tide of curses and praises that still slipped out regularly. His muscles tensed as he spilled inside me, his hands tightening on my legs hard enough to bruise. It was glorious.

Spent, he fell to the bed beside me and we lay together, sharing sweat and panting breaths with our closeness. Arthur’s nose nuzzled sweetly against my hairline as he dropped a kiss on my temple.

“There’s something about you, Merlin. Something amazing,” he murmured to the curve of my ear. “How’d you manage that?”

Warmth flared in my chest, a pleasant glow entirely unlike the pained clench that always accompanied my curse. Basking in the feeling of safety I’d thought I’d lost with Mum, being held and cherished and maybe, I even dared hope, loved, I forgave all the hardships of my life for having brought me to that moment.

I tilted my face up to look into his eyes. “Arthur, I—”

All tenderness vanished as he flinched back, shoving me away from him and scrambling clear of the bed. Steel flashing, he snatched up a knife and held it between us. I’m sure you can guess which way the pointed end was facing.

The few words I tried to get out couldn’t make it past my shock, but Arthur saved me the need to ask him what was wrong.

“Sorcerer,” he spat. His eyes were fixed on mine.

My whole world, so warm and welcoming just moments before, turned to ice.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

The cell was cold, though at least I’d been allowed to cover my shame before being dragged from Arthur’s bed. The Prince himself had given me that courtesy as he confronted me about the golden glow he’d caught in my eyes and asked if I was there to kill him as my kind had killed his parents. All I could do was deny it, over and over again. I couldn’t explain, not with the enchantment keeping the words heavy and unspoken in my chest. It wasn’t enough.

The iron shackles were cold, locked around my wrists and ankles as soon as someone had run them up to meet us. I was out of Arthur’s room by then, and he’d remained behind with his face twisted in anger and disgust. He didn’t watch as the guards forced me through the door. I shouted for him, sobbing all the pleas I could, but he couldn’t hear what I couldn’t say. He turned away.

The Witchfinder’s smile was cold as he studied me through the bars. It was the one who’d been in the market my first day, the one whose presence had made me trip up Arthur. This time, I didn’t avoid his attention. I was treated to the full intensity of his hard stare, and I didn’t like it at all.

“How did a little thing like you slip by me, hm? Tell me, is there something special about you?”

Bracing for the tight kick of compulsion in my chest, it took me only a moment to notice that nothing came. The Witchfinder had told me to do something, but I hadn’t. Trained for interrogation, the Witchfinder caught my surprise and only the dungeon door slamming open stopped whatever nasty questioning he had planned next.

Of course, my good luck didn’t turn out to be good luck at all. It turned out to be Regent Agravaine and, a step or two behind him, Valiant.

“That’s him!” exclaimed Valiant on seeing me. “That’s Merlin. We have a deal, right?”

With a grimace that Valiant couldn’t see, Agravaine nodded. “If what you say is true, yes. That part remains to be seen.”

Valiant stepped forward impatiently, starting, “I’ll show you,” but stopped at a wave of Agravaine’s hand. Looking put out, he subsided.

Agravaine studied me. “Your brother tells me you’re under an enchantment of some sort. Is this true?”

He hadn’t phrased it in a way that would have compelled me to answer, and I didn’t think it would have worked even if he had, if the Witchfinder’s command had been anything to go by. So I just said, “He’s not my brother.”

“Come to the front of the cell,” Agravaine told me.

I didn’t move.

Starting to look nervous, Valiant shuffled a half a step closer again. “I swear, I didn’t lie to you. For months now he’s been spelled to do anything you tell him, there’s no chance he was faking it. Not with the things he had to do.” To me, he added, “Don’t be difficult, you little shit. Come here.”

“I’m comfortable, thanks.” A lie, but a defiant one. I enjoyed the red spreading over Valiant’s face.

My hope that the Regent would write it off at that was tragically short-lived. He asked the Witchfinder, “Thoughts, Aredian? The iron, perhaps.”

“Hm. No. The iron will bind his magic, but not the effect of any enchantment on him. Unless...”

“Unless?”

The Witchfinder, Aredian, turned his stare onto Agravaine. There was a dark delight in his eyes that worried me—rightly so, as it would come to pass. “The only explanation is that somehow the obedience this...”—he gestured at Valiant—“person claims is not an outside enchantment, but comes from the sorcerer’s own power.”

“His own power,” repeated Agravaine thoughtfully. “So if we remove the chains...?”

“If I’m right, and I’m sure that I am, he’ll be bound to obey again.”

When they unlocked the door and pushed into the cell, I tried to get away. Truly I did, and that’s how desperately I wanted to stay free of my—self-imposed, I now knew—compulsion. I would have rather lived the rest of my life in irons than let those men remove them and be subject to their will.

But I was no match for them, and no sooner had the last shackle been struck free than Agravaine commanded, “Stand.”

Resignation twisting with pain in my heart, I stood.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

Agravaine dismissed Valiant with a large pouch of gold and a promise to keep him in mind for political appointments when Aredian was King. All of us but Valiant knew it to be a lie, just as all of us but Valiant knew he’d never make it past the gates alive. None of us mourned him.

I was ordered to the Regent’s room, where he and Aredian tested the limits of my obedience and my magic. I pleased them in one regard and disappointed them in the other: magic still eluded me, and I accomplished nothing when instructed to light a fire without touching the wood or flint.

“His eyes don’t even glow with the attempt,” noted Aredian. “How did Arthur catch him out?”

Agravaine’s face twisted in an ugly smirk. I wished I didn’t know what he was thinking. But before following through on that bit of nastiness, he asked, “So he can’t use magic at all?”

“No. I think it’s busy, keeping him under control. Do you know how that happened?” The last was directed at me, as was a vicious slap and a barked, “Answer me!” when I didn’t speak. “Any question I ask, you will answer.”

“Yes.”

Sighing, more at himself for giving the wrong order than at me for obeying only to the minimum, Aredian said, “Tell me how.”

“An oath.” I couldn’t fight the words ripping themselves from my throat, no matter how much I wanted to. “To my mother.”

If I’d been paying attention then, I would have realized that his command had overridden Valiant’s—or maybe not. It was a different enough thing, telling someone about the curse against telling somehow how it came to be, that the semantics of magic probably would have allowed it.

“Could you use your magic before that?”

“Yes.” I hated him.

“And after?”

“No.” I wanted to kill him with a violence that I’d never felt before that moment. I’d feel it again, even stronger, before I left that room.

Satisfied, Aredian nodded to Agravaine. “As I thought. You won’t be able to make use of his magic, but a knife or poisoned wine will work just as well. You can even have him confess after he kills the Prince. It’s a much tidier plan than we thought we’d have.”

“Maybe.” The dangerous gleam was back in Agravaine’s eye. “But there may yet be a way to force the magic out of him. Arthur managed, after all, and we all know how.”

The Regent sent me to my knees before him. I knew what was coming, but that didn’t help me brace against it any better as he unlaced his trousers and pulled himself out.

To this day, I can’t say if it’s better or worse that Arthur burst in before things could proceed further. Better, surely, but I still hate that both our hearts had to break twice in such rapid succession.

“Uncle, the guards say—Merlin! What’s the meaning of this? Why did you take him from the dungeons and why is he...” Arthur’s voice trailed into nothing when he couldn’t bear to look at me anymore.

“Arthur—”

“Shut up, Merlin,” snapped the Regent, then returned his attention to Arthur. “This? I don’t know where you got the foolish idea your previous boy had magic, Arthur. Aredian has checked thoroughly.”

My stomach roiled at the insinuation, but my mouth stayed firmly shut.

“He’s eager to prove himself, though. Said he’d do just anything to get out of there. Go on,” Agravaine taunted, his voice oily sweet. “Tell him you begged for it like the little whore you are.”

I had to. Magic forced the words out of my grief-tight throat, but it couldn’t stop the shaking of my voice or the fall of my tears.

Despite what he must have seen as both of my betrayals that morning, Arthur’s face crumpled in devastation. He whispered, “Say it’s not true.”

“It’s not true,” I insisted, staring up at him, still on my knees. I prayed as I hadn’t prayed since my mother’s death that he’d make the connection; Valiant had figured it out, and though Arthur hadn’t had months of observation to make the connection, he was smarter than my step-brother by at least half.

Then—I could speak. Agravaine’s silencing had worn off. With barely any time to warn Arthur, not least because Aredian was sneaking up behind him, I yelled, “They want to kill you!”

“Bite your lying tongue!”

I might have lost my ability to speak forever, if not for Agravaine’s need to dramatize everything. Since my tongue wasn’t lying, I remained uncompelled to bite it, and could instead get out another warning. “Behind you!”

Arthur spun to find Aredian behind him, but the Witchfinder only stood passively, with one of his least creepy smiles. Which was still pretty creepy.

Turning back to see that Agravaine had finally tucked to his prick away, Arthur looked straight at me and demanded, “Merlin, tell me what’s going on.”

Before I could, Agravaine ordered me to silence again and my mouth snapped shut.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Come here,” he told me.

“Don’t move,” said Agravaine.

I fell still, saltwater welling in my eyes when I couldn’t do so much as blink the tears away.

Arthur was indeed clever. I could see the realization dawning on his face within moments. Unfortunately, so could Agravaine. He thrust a dagger in my hand and commanded, “Merlin, kill Arthur.” Aredian lunged at the same moment.

Arthur didn’t have his sword on him, the poor, trusting clotpole, so I could only hope his training would be enough to overcome both of us. It could only help that one of us was a gangly country boy, even if one magically propelled to murder.

He took a wary step backwards as I rose to my feet, seeming to walk right into Aredian’s waiting reach. But Arthur, who despite his many faults was an excellent soldier and brilliant tacticion, spun at the last minute, wrenching Aredian’s dagger from his hands and slicing it deeply across the Witchfinder’s gut in the same movement.

Gurgling blood, Aredian fell.

But I’d reached Arthur by then, and he didn’t quite avoid my wild swing; a slash of pale skin showed through the gash I rent in his tunic, then a thin red welt blossomed up from his flesh. I couldn’t stop my body, but Agravaine didn’t have my mind.

Arthur was closer to the door than I was, and with Aredian down, there was no one in his way. “Go, Arthur, please. I can’t—You have to get out of here, or just—just kill me first. Please, Arthur. Don’t let me do this.”

“You really think I can’t fight you off, Merlin?” Arthur’s smirk was a ghost of its usual assuredness, so it only gave me the ghost of hope.

It was going well. Arthur could fight me off, and without even much trouble. But neither of us saw Agravaine coming, and thus didn’t expect his sword sinking into Arthur’s back and out his chest.

This is another of those fuzzy moments, dear reader, like with the sex. And like with the sex, there’s no one alive to remember it any more clearly than me. So while I could embellish the scene to death and nobody could argue with my depictions, I’ll stay true to my promise of the true story.

I exploded.

Every fiber of my being caught fire like a haystack in summer, combustion building upon combustion until the air itself rippled with me. It was the most agonizing pain I’ve known before or since, but in the midst of the conflagration I found peace.

Everything that wasn’t me burned away. That included my clothes, which made for a slightly less impressive scene when the guards burst in to find me victorious, but it also included the twisting strands of my curse, the enchantment I’d unwittingly laid upon myself.

My magic freed itself from its bonds, and in doing so freed me from mine. The storm of power raced indiscriminately outwards, consuming the room. It swallowed Arthur, Agravaine, and Aredian, but I wasn’t worried. It was me, my magic, and finally it would obey my desires instead of forcing me to obey others’.

There was nothing left of the two would-be King-killers when Arthur stirred and his knights flooded, drawn too late by the commotion, to our rescue.

There was also nothing left of his clothes, and I was happy to read forgiveness and acceptance in the way he threw his naked body around mine and kissed me until much more appropriately armored men broke us apart.

᯼᯼᯼᯼᯼

And we lived happily ever after.

  * King Consort Merlin Pendragon, First Warlock of Camelot




End file.
